“it is not only that, with the symbolic, the imaginary turns into the appearance concealing a hidden reality—the appearance the symbolic generates is that of appearance itself, namely the appearance that there is a hidden reality beneath the visible appearance. The precise name for this appearance of something that has no existence in itself, that exists only in its effects and thus only appears to appear, is virtuality—the virtual is the invisible X, the void whose contours can only be reconstructed from its effects, like a magnetic pole which only exists inasmuch as it attracts the small metal pieces that gather around it. With regard to sexual difference, the fundamental virtual entity, the most elementary invisible X which only “appears to appear,” is the maternal phallus: the maternal phallus is imagined—not directly, but as a forever invisible virtual point of reference.